If this is how Mitt Romney reacts to clear and perfectly legitimate questions from viewers of a Denver television station, how will he react to questions in the heat of a national campaign?

Kudos to reporter Shaun Boyd for remaining steady in the face of Romney’s nearly unrestrained passive aggressive, soft-voice, bullying attempt.

I don’t know if there’s a Mormon word for chutzpah, but if there is one, it definitely applies to Mitt Romney’s latest: taking credit (“a lot of credit”) for saving General Motors and Chrysler.

As Jon Stewart explains on “The Daily Show”(sadly, more coherently and accurately that CBS News does), Romney did propose that GM and Chrysler go through a managed bankruptcy. But he vehemently opposed government funding for the companies, insisting that the money come from private sources. Of course, banks and other private funding sources could not and would not support the companies, so President Obama made the decision to save them with government funds.

So, yes, Romney’s policy would have resulted in a managed bankruptcy, just as President Obama’s policy did. The difference is that under Romney’s plan, GM and Chrysler would have died and under Obama’s they have survived and thrived.

* “I’m not going to suggest that I’m in any way a psychologist. That’s a decision a psychologist would have to tell ya and I’m not going to weigh in on that.” – May 6, 2012


That’s Mitt Romney’s response to whether homosexuality is a defect. Classic Mitt. Simultaneously weak, smug, and full of crap.

* “Even Jimmy Carter would have given that order.” – April 30, 2012
Maybe, Mitt, but you wouldn’t have. How could you give the order to kill bin Laden when he was in Pakistan and you were on record that the U.S. should not go into Pakistan unilaterally to find him? With your stated approach, U.S. intelligence wouldn’t even have acquired the information about where bin Laden was. Even if you fell into such intelligence, are we really expected to believe that you would do anything so bold, particularly considering the plan was given no more than a 50% chance of success by informed experts and that some close advisers to the President counseled against it?

* “Ann and I are proud to call Newt and Calista friends.” – May 2, 2012

Shepard Smith may have something on Roger Ailes, because he somehow has not been shitcanned from Fox News after this and other similarly sharp critiques of Republican figures and policies. And, yes, I understand that politicians of both parties engage in this kind of transparently phony nonsense. But would anyone hold it against Mitt Romney if he didn’t want to be friends with Newt Gingrich? Wouldn’t it have been less egregiously fake to say something like, “Newt Gingrich ran a spirited campaign and helped energize Republicans across the country…”?

The “one person” Mitt Romney is referring to in the quote above is Osama bin Laden.

Many (maybe most) of the quotes chronicled at this site reflect on how Mitt is so often awkward and so typically dishonest. But it’s a quote like this one that underscores Mitt’s versatility–he’s also capable of being so incredibly wrong about important issues, too.

On this, the first anniversary of bin Laden’s death–at the hands of U.S. Navy SEALS, who followed the order of President Obama in one of U.S. history’s riskiest and most successful military attacks–it’s useful to look back and think about what how Romney would have responded to the circumstances faced by Obama a year ago and similar situations, which inevitably confront Presidents of the United States.

How it’s taken me so long to post this classic, I’ll never know.

Stay with the entire video–from a Jacksonville, Florida campaign stop on Martin Luther King Day!– to hear Mitt refer to a young child’s “bling bling.”

Watching Mitt Romney interact with humans is fascinating. One case in point is his attempt at needling humor(?) during a campaign stop in suburban Pittsburgh.

The video from “The Colbert Report” sets the context and provides its typically clever take, but suffice it to say that the man the Republicans have all-but-decided on as their 2012 presidential nominee essentially describes a selection of cookies from a beloved local bakery as a plateful of crap no one should have to be forced to consume.

If Larry David from “Curb Your Enthusiasm” said something like this at a gathering of supportive strangers, we’d laugh and think, “What a misfit prick!” What does that make Romney?

Mitt Romney’s strenuous attempts to find some area of foreign policy difference with President Obama have been most frequent and noticeable on the question of Iran.

Today Romney spoke via satellite to the influential American-Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC.) Mitt being Mitt, he of course lied (“This President not only dawdled in imposing crippling sanctions, he has opposed them”), but more importantly, he expressed words that a day earlier President Obama described as, “loose talk of war.”

Said Romney, “I will bring the current policy of procrastination toward Iran to an end. I will not delay in imposing further crippling sanctions, and I will not hesitate to fully implement the ones we currently have. I will make sure Iran knows of the very real peril that awaits if it becomes nuclear. I will engage Iran’s neighbors. I will station multiple carriers and warships at Iran’s door. I will stand with the Syrian people who are being mercilessly slaughtered. I know that the fall of Assad would not only be an important victory for liberty, but also a strategic blow to Tehran.”

The questions need to be asked to Romney: How soon will he send the carriers and warships? How many troops is he prepared to possibly send into Iran? How will he respond if his actions lead to wider war in the already unstable Middle East? How will be pay for this?

Romney’s desperate effort to distinguish himself from President Obama might appeal to some hawks in the Republican party, as well as some American Jews concerned with the security of Israel. But Romney’s belligerence is not only irresponsible, it could also be politically foolish. Most American Jews do not want a nuclear Iran, but are supportive of the sanctions that appear to be squeezing the nation. They don’t want a rush to war. Even in Israel, most Jews support the diplomatic approach currently being taken. Romney’s war talk might appeal to Evangelical Christians who are driven by its raptorous possibilities, but how will it play to political independents, many of whom are weary after a decade of war?

Considering the boasting that Romney did about his connection to the Jewish people and his propensity to reference “Seinfeld” (even though he always screws those up), he’ll probably understand this line from “The Face Painter” episode in Season Six, which applies to his unmistakably clear intentions for Iran: “…that’s a pretty big matzo ball hanging out there.”

From the still incredibly clever comedic minds at Mad Magazine:

* “Corporations are people too, my friend.” – August 11, 2011

My accountant slyly dropped Mitt’s now-famous line during our meeting last week. It reminded me how–regardless of how Mitt fares during the election season–this quote’s essential Mittness looks to have first-ballot Mittquotes Hall of Fame potential.

* “I like those fancy raincoats you bought. Really sprung for the big bucks.” – February 26, 2012

It was “Gentleman, start your gaffes” for Mitt at the rain-soaked (and ultimately postponed) Daytona 500 on Sunday. First, the video above that features Mitt talking his obviously genuine love of “cars and sport” (that’s “sport”; not “sports” with an s. Such a regular guy, that Mitt.) And of course the much-ridiculed line about not following NASCAR as closely as “some of its most ardent fans…[but] I have some friends who are NASCAR team owners.”

What has been overlooked (perhaps because it is not captured on video) is his needling some Daytona fans who were wearing garbage bags to protect themselves from the rain. The only word to describe a person making that joke rhymes with the first name of Romney’s main opponent for the Republican nomination.

* Late Show with David Letterman-Top Ten Other Things Mitt Romney Loves About Michigan’s Trees – February 28, 2012

I don’t watch Dave much anymore, but these his iconic Top Ten Lists are still pretty funny. Stay with this; the best comes in at number one.

Ford Field in Detroit is the beautiful enclosed home stadium of the NFL’s Detroit Lions. The greatest player on that team is wide receiver Calvin Johnson, who is nicknamed Megatron because his rare and potent combination of traits–size, speed, hands, intelligence, and heart–seem as if they were created in a lab by scientists intent on building the perfect pass catcher.

Earlier today, another seemingly lab-created lifeform was in Ford Field; Mitt Romney. He was speaking to the Detroit Economic Club. It was boilerplate stuff, until the end, when Mitt again started riffing on the wonders of the state where he was born and grew up.

Let’s review some of the quotes from just the last 75 seconds of this speech:

* “Ann drives a couple of Cadillacs, actually.” Romney is already taking some heat and ridicule for this line, which has been described by many as another detached-rich-guy gaffe. I do not see it that way. Firstly, Romney is rich. Very, very rich. There is nothing in and of itself wrong that and this description of his wife’s cars did not convey a bragging tone. What Romney did brag about was that she drives Cadillacs (General Motors), he drives a Mustang (Ford), and that he used to drive a Dodge pickup (Chrysler) so he had the Big Three automakers “covered.” That’s a 90/10 mix of pandering and bragging that can most generously be described as Mitt Being Mitt.

* He doubled down on the height of Michigan’s trees by again saying, “The trees are the right height.” I think Romney believes repeating this line mitigates its profound and random weirdness.

* “The streets are just right.” Huh?

* “I should love this state.” Should?

* “Governor Schneider will have an ally in the White House…” Mitt, the last name you were looking for there was Snyder. He’s the governor of Michigan who recently endorsed you, not the conspicuously key-toting super on the incredibly lame and quintessentially 70s sitcom “One Day at a Time.”